She let you in
by AvecHer
Summary: Part I: 'They told me you were dead.' Part II: 'What have they done to you'
1. Chapter 1

_Note: This is in Maura's perspective. _

* * *

'Hey.' You say it first. You don't even know why… _Because you still might care._

'Hey.' Jane's voice is rough, unsteady and with the look on her face, you can tell it's not how she wants it to sound. _It's been so long._

You look at her, and you remember how she used to look. Her hair is shorter now. She walked towards you with a limp. You're able to see that she's trying her best to stand still. You also notice the scars for the first time. She has one on her left cheek and another one running from under her ear towards her collar bone.

'They told me you were dead.' You didn't mean for it to sound so macabre. But that's what they told you and she needs to know that. It's the only way she'll understand.

'I was.' Jane says with a sigh. 'I'm sorry.' She shifts her weight from one foot to the other and you can see the pain cross her face for a millisecond. She's trying to hide what she's feeling. She's always been the strongest one…

You give her a small smile after you remember what she just said, because _she_'s actually _apologizing _for almost dying. 'No. No, don't be sorry. There's nothing to be sorry about. You didn't die, Jane. You're here. You didn't die.'

'Maura.' You love it when she says your name. You love it when she doesn't know what to say but your name. _You lo-_

'I waited,' and now you wait some more. You watch her breathe. You watch her take in what you just said. You try to read her expression but there's nothing. Maybe she didn't understand what you meant, so you elaborate, 'I waited for you.'

She looks at you, and you could swear that the corner of her mouth moved up for a slight second. _You lov-_

'I know.'

You're not surprised but you still want to know. 'How?'

'Tommy told me. He told me everything. You two must've gotten really close. It's like he knew exactly how you felt.'

'He told you everything?' You're not sure that you want her to know everything. So much has happened.

'Everything. Sometimes ignorance is really bliss.'

'Jane…' _You love her._

'No, I'm happy you found someone. We didn't really part as friends, did we?' You don't say anything. 'I just want you to be happy, Maura.'

You don't know how to respond. You don't know how much Tommy has told her. You could easily tell someone what all 206 bones in a human body are, but now you don't know anything anymore. 'They wouldn't tell me what really happened to you.'

'I left. I died. I came back. There's nothing more, nothing I can remember to be honest. I didn't know who you were until I remembered you a couple of weeks ago. I saw you in the newspaper and then everything just started to gradually come back.'

'Jane.' You say with tears in your eyes, the tears you've been holding since the start of this conversation.

'I know,' she says as she puts her arms around you pulling you closer. Your arms go around her neck and you hug her tighter.

_You missed her._

* * *

Weeks have passed since the conversation you had with Jane. She's doing better, not that she was bad before, but she's just _better_. You're back to being 'friends' with her. You share a laugh every now and then, you even have lunch or dinner together and she invites you to family dinners on Sunday.

_Family dinners. _

Her hair's growing. The curls are settling in like the way they used to be. She also isn't limping so obviously anymore. The scars are fading slightly but they're still there and you have to hold back tears every time you them. She has more scars than the ones you saw before. She has them all over her body. You saw them accidently a week ago when you walked in on her getting dressed.

_'Scars don't tell the whole story.' She told you as she put on her shirt. You kept looking at her, taking in every one of them before they disappeared under her shirt._

_'I know, but yours tell me enough.' You said with a sigh._

_'Do you want to know?' She asked you as she turned her head so you could see her._

_'The whole story?' There was a story behind all of this. You knew that there was a story but you weren't ready._

_'Yeah, do you want to know?'_

_'No.' You're still not ready._

_'Okay.'_

_'I don't want to know it right now. Not today and maybe not tomorrow, but one day. One day when we're both ready. Then I want you to tell me the whole story.'_

_'Okay. When we're ready. Soon.' She told you. You have to know. Everything will make sense when you know. Everything._

You still haven't asked her to tell you. You're not ready. You're not even sure if you ever will be ready.

You turn the television on and the news is on. You don't really pay attention because you have to go over the autopsy files again. It's the third time and you're sure you haven't missed anything but she insisted and you complied.

It's her first case since she rejoined the force. You thought she would just look for something else, something less dangerous, but this is what she wanted. Because this is what she is. She's a detective, always has been. And secretly this is what you want because you hadn't seen her in so long and now you see her every day.

When you're on the third page of the file, going over the injuries of the victim, you hear the voice of a reporter preceded with 'Breaking News'.

**_'This just in. Detective Jane Rizzoli from the Boston Police Department, who had been missing for 3 years, returned to Boston a couple of weeks ago alive and well. There are rumors going around about what happened in those 3 years but tonight we find out the truth. Stay tuned for the full story.'_**

The reporter was replaced with an ad block. You just sit there, the reports already fallen from your lap, scattered on the ground, and you can't move. You don't move, speak, and you're sure you haven't breathed in a while so you take a breath and try not to hyperventilate.

The news reporter is back and she starts telling you things you can't believe, things that can't be true. You see images and you hear facts. You weren't ready for this. Nothing could've prepared you for this.

You start crying because that's all you can do right now. The truth… The truth hurts too much.

* * *

She finds you on the floor, in front of your couch. You feel her fingers on your cheek and you let out another sob. She gathers you up in her arms as you're still crying, your head on her shoulder. You want it to stop. You want to forget.

"It's okay," she whispers. She doesn't let you go. She makes sure that she's there for you, like you were for her. She knows that you need her.

So you accept her. She kisses you on the forehead as she strokes your hair.

It's not okay. You know that it's not okay. But you need her right now so you don't speak. Seconds pass, minutes pass, an hour passes. Another hour and you're all out of tears. You just weren't ready to see what had happened to her.

You get up, untangling yourself from her arms and you silently walk towards the bathroom. You close the door behind you and look in the mirror. You don't remember yourself anymore. This isn't who you are. This isn't you.

You splash some water on your face and remove your make up, because you look like a mess. You've only been like this once. Once. And that's when she left. And now she's back and she's still making you feel this way.

'Maura?' You hear a knock on the door and you can see her face in front of you. She's worried. About what you might do in here. You take one more look in the mirror before you open the door. She's standing there, looking at you, and trying to read your face.

'I came here to check up on you. And to see if out of all the days you had to turn your TV on, it had to be today.' She explained. She didn't have to explain. She had seen enough. A random stranger explained everything.

'You lied to me.' You know that it's not fair. You know that she didn't lie but it felt like lying. You don't know anymore.

'No, I didn't lie. I just didn't tell you… yet.'

'And that's better than lying?' You have no idea why you're acting like this. This isn't how you wanted this conversation to go.

'I didn't say it was. Why are you so mad at me?' she almost yells at you.

You look at her, as you start trembling, remembering what you had just seen and heard, word for word, image after image. 'Because you didn't tell me that you got-'

But she interrupts you, 'I didn't tell you because you didn't want to know, remember? You said not now, or tomorrow. You said when we're ready and we weren't.'

Now you have to know that what you saw was real, 'Tell me now, then.'

'No.'

'Why?'

'I'm not telling you now. Not like this.' She looked at you like you were about to fall apart.

'Not like how?' You were losing your patience. You had a right. As her 'friend', you had a right to know.

'Not when you're about to break down! I can't watch you break down, Maur. I can't. I've been through enough shit and I need you to not break down when I tell you! So, not now.'

You look at her and you can see the pain. You know what she's been through but you still want to hear it from her. You want to know how much of it is actually true.

'Tomorrow?' you ask.

'Soon. I'll tell you soon.'

'Tomorrow.' You repeat because you need to know. It's killing you and it's probably killed parts of her too.

'Maybe.' She murmurs as she stares at you. She doesn't know what to do. When you were friends before she left, she would give you a hug or just leave and you'll see her again tomorrow. Now, after everything that has happened and after everything that hasn't, she doesn't know how to react.

'Are you going to leave, now?'

She looks at you, knowing that she can't lose you again. She won't lose you again. 'Do you want me to?'

'No.' It leaves your mouth before you can stop it. You're honest. You're too honest. Unraveling things you wanted to keep hidden, for now.

She moves towards you, your name rolling of her lips. 'Maura…'

You put up your hand, 'Just don't move.'

'Why?'

'Jane, just don't move for a minute.'

'Okay.' She mumbles and she involuntarily takes a step back. She's giving you space. 'Can I-'

'No. Okay, you won't tell me what happened after you left but what about just before you left. I needed you then. And you just left. Why?'

She looks at you like you just gave up your biggest secret. 'You never told me you needed me.'

'Did I have to?'

'Maybe. If I'd know you needed me this much, we could've had this sooner.'

'We could've had what sooner?' you ask her because you don't know. She takes a step forward, testing you, so you give her a small nod and she takes the remaining steps forward until she's standing inches apart from you. 'Jane.' She closes her eyes when you say her name. It has the same effect on her.

She cups your face with both hands and says 'This.' before her lips meets yours.

(…)

When you wake up the next day, she's nowhere to be seen. You don't see her clothes on the floor where you dropped them last night. She must've picked them up and left. You look at the clock next to you, it's only 8:30, and you drop yourself back on the bed. You understand why she might've left. Last night wasn't really something you both planned on doing but it did mean everything to you.

_She let you in. _And you're happy she did. You can feel the smile on your face becoming bigger but it suddenly disappears when you hear a loud sound coming from inside the house.

You quickly put your robe on while you walk towards your bedroom door and take the baseball bat that's placed next to your dresser and you slowly open the door.

You scan the kitchen en living room but you don't see anyone.

Bass. It's probably Bass. You turn around and before you take two steps, you hear her voice.

'Shit, Maura, did I wake you?' It's her. She's here.

You turn back around and you look at her, clothed in the wrinkled clothes she came here in last night.

'Jane…' You say her name, letting out the breath you didn't know you were holding.

'Did I wake you?' she asks you again as she walks towards you.

'No. I was already awake.' You answer and she's just staring at you, not knowing what to do. 'You didn't leave.' You close the distance between the two of you and you put your arms around her neck.

'Why would I leave?' she says as she pulls you closer, putting her arms around your waist.

When she starts pulling her arms away, you do the same and you just look her in the eyes. You're seeing her. Pieces of the old Jane in her eyes and you smile at her. She returns the smile before letting you go and walking towards the counter.

'I made you coffee.' She says as she takes the two cups from the counter and walks back to you.

'Instant?' you ask her, taking one of the cups.

'No, I'm pretty sure that this isn't instant coffee because it took me ten minutes to make.' She says with a laugh.

'Thank you.' You say before closing your eyes and taking a sip. A moan escapes your lips and when you open your eyes, you see her staring at you.

'You… Uhm…' she clears her throat, 'welcome. You're welcome.'

You got to her. Last night you got to her and now she's yours. _She's finally yours._

'Jane, can I-'

'One.' She interrupts, 'you can ask me one question today.'

'One?'

'One.'

'Okay…' You don't know which one to ask. You don't know where to start because there's so much that you want to know. "What happened to you?" would get you the whole story but you're not ready to hear that yet. You don't even know who you are anymore because one moment you've prepared yourself for the worst to come and you want to know everything. The next moment you feel as if you're about to fall apart because it's just too much to handle.

You remember something. You remember the voice of the reporter as she stated one fact after another and one of the facts stands out.

'How many?' you ask her, but maybe you should elaborate.

But she knows. When she looks at you, she knows exactly what you're asking. 'How many innocent people have I killed?'

You nod and she holds eye contact.

'I don't know.' She murmurs.

You see the pain as she looks away from you. She doesn't know.

'Everything happened so fast and I didn't know how many people were inside.' She starts to explain but she can see that you don't want to know. She nods and she waits.

You've waited for a very long time, so you let her do the waiting this time. You know it's not fair but you just need to think. You need to find out how to respond to her answer.

'How do you live with that?' You know that it's your second question but she doesn't say anything.

'I don't.' She looks away from you. 'But I can't take back what I did.' She adds.

And you see the tears in her eyes and you put your and her coffee on the counter and you pull her in for another hug.

As much as you need to know what happened, she needs you more. So you're there for her. You'll always be there for her.

**FIN**

* * *

A/N: That's it. That's the end to my first Rizzoli & Isles fanfic. A review would be nice, and you can also ask me anything if something was unclear. (Any grammatical mistakes are also mine because this didn't get beta'd but I did read it seven times...)

But yes, this is the end. I don't do long stories because I never manage to finish them. But for this one shot I wrote the dialogue first and then polished it with some words. I'm not good at describing things, I never have been. I can't seem to get the words out to a scene that plays in my head. But I have no problem with dialogue apparently.

There's some backstory to this story that isn't written down because it's all in my head and I have no idea how to do it justice. So if you have any questions about that, ask away.

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Part II: Not a hero**

**Note: This is still Maura's POV and Trigger warning(?)**

* * *

You approach her as she puts down her phone on the counter.

Three days. It's been three days since that news report and you don't know how to ask her for more, how to ask her for the truth. Maybe saying nothing is the only way to tell the truth. She's been avoiding it and you know that it's killing her. You want her to tell you but at the same time… You don't want to know.

You don't want to know. What you've already heard was too much to bear but to hear her say it would be so much more difficult.

She puts a hand on your cheek, and kisses the other before she puts her arms around you.

_She needs you._

"What have they done to you?" you whisper in her ear because it's tearing you both apart. If you don't talk about this, you'll never be able to move on. You'll never be able to become something more.

_And you need more. And she needs you._

You pull back slightly, your faces not more than 5 inches apart, and you touch the scar on her cheek.

She leans into your touch and closes her eyes. She's so tired and so worried about everything, especially you, because she hasn't left your side since the news report.

She knows what you almost did. She knows what you thought about doing when she left because everything was too much to handle. She also knows how close you came to actually doing it on the day they told you she was dead.

_They told you she was dead._ And you believed it. After a while you had to start living with the fact that she wasn't coming back to you. And after a while it stopped killing you.

_But she came back. For you. To you. To be with you. _

_You love her._

You feel her shaking to your touch, and before you ask her what's wrong, her lips find yours and she kisses you.

When she pulls back, you stare at her, your eyebrows furrowing.

"I just needed that." She answers your unasked question.

You smile at her because now, you can do that too. You can kiss her when you just need it, you can kiss her hello, goodbye, before you go to bed, when you get up the next day and just when you feel like kissing her.

And she does that too. And it makes you complete because you've waited for three years and now, finally, she's yours.

* * *

You're lying on your back on the bed, looking at the bedroom ceiling. She's next to you, her back to you because she can't sleep on her back. It hurts, she told you before.

The sheet is placed around her waist, leaving her back naked. You turn around, trying to cover her, making sure she isn't too cold. And you can't help yourself. You put your elbow on the pillow next to her head, your hand supporting your head, and you slide closer.

The sun is shining through the curtains, glints of sunshine landing on the bed. You start tracing her scars with your fingers, making sure that you don't press too hard on them. You can feel her start breathing differently because she feels you on her and she doesn't like it when you pay attention to her scars but you honestly can't help yourself.

She knows that you know. Which weapon they used and how deep the wounds are. She knows that you know which scars almost killed her.

But you don't know how she survived, judging by her wounds. Jane being alive is a miracle and that kills you. Only knowing what she went through and feeling what they did to her, it kills you.

"Stop." Her voice is hoarse and muffled by her pillow. You stop tracing a scar, but you don't move your finger. She doesn't turn around but puts her cheek on the pillow, still not facing you.

"One of them lost their temper. He gave me that one after I made fun of his name." she explains.

"Jane…" You sigh. The words from the news report coming back to you.

**Tortured.**

You suspected that. But you wanted it not to be that. You would have made peace with anything else but never with that. They hurt her, slowly for two years. Two years.

And she waits for you. For you take that one in, as she feels your finger move up and down the scar tissue, because that's not the worst one. That's not even a bad one. You can feel that he, whoever he was, didn't go deep with the knife. It was just a warning.

You can feel that the worst is yet to come. It's one of the first scars that you saw, the one that definitely should've killed her (the one that goes from under her ear towards her shoulder). Scientifically, it's impossible for her to survive such a cut, unless it wasn't deep enough… But it was. You've seen dead bodies before. You've seen their wounds and you've always rightly determined if they were deep enough to kill them. And it's the same with her. That cut was more than enough to kill her.

"There was a kid. He must've been sixteen, maybe seventeen." She starts.

And you think back to the news report.

**Gang. **You remember the gang that was mentioned. You remember their faces, you remember their tattoo's. You remember everything.

**War. **She was in the middle of it. She was undercover in one of the gangs, trying to bring them down from the inside. For one year she was safe, they believed everything she fed them, every little piece of useless information, until they found out who she really was. And that's when everything went to hell.

**Prostition. Drugs. Murder. **These dirt bags did everything. And they were going down for everything they've ever done. Jane made sure of that.

Jane continues, "There was this kid that was with me one day. He must've been family because they don't let anyone in that's younger than eighteen. They gave me the cut on my shoulder and left me with him. I thought I was dying. No, I knew I was dying. It felt differently. And I came close to dying so many times before but this time it felt differently."

"Jane, we don't have to-" But she cut you off, turning around and facing you.

"We do. This is killing us, Maur." She sighed, taking your face in her hands. "It almost killed me but we need to put this behind us. I need to move forward. I need to stop thinking about it. I just need you to do this with me. Just let me get this out."

"Okay." You tell her, and it's enough. One word is more than enough.

"He told me about what they had done in case of emergencies. He put something in my hand and helped me in a car. They told him to drop and leave me somewhere… anywhere. Because they knew that I wouldn't last long. That this time I wouldn't heal from my wounds and that after two years they still didn't have anything. I didn't understand what was happening. Everything starting moving so slowly and the last thing I remember was people, nurses hovering over me and my hand pressing a button." She said, and you held her hand as she drew circles on them. "I don't know how many people were inside. He told me that everyone I wanted was and that was enough for me."

"You instigated the explosion." You said and you remember something else.

**Building. **

**TNT. Explosion. **They put it there as a precaution. So they could blow it up themselves when the cops came too close. To destroy all the evidence.

**Dead. Innocents? **The reported didn't know how many people were killed but there was an estimation made. An estimation that Jane couldn't confirm or deny because she didn't know.

"I did. And people are dead because of that."

"You did what you though was best at that time." You tried reassuring her.

"Maura, I killed people. And they want to give me a medal for that." Jane said, looking away. You remember the first time she got a medal, months after she saved her brother and you from corrupt cops. She thought she didn't deserve a medal because shooting herself didn't feel heroic. She doesn't know how many people's life she saved by putting a bullet inside of herself. How much she sacrificed to make sure other people didn't get hurt.

You turn her head back around, making her face you. You stare at her and before she can even get a syllable out, you cut her off with a kiss. Before you get lost in it, you pull back, your foreheads touching and you take a deep breath.

"Jane, I need you to listen to me. You think you're not a hero, and you might not be a one. But you saved a lot of girls and you brought families justice for their murdered relatives and you made sure that they don't do anything like that again. Yes, you killed people but most of them were bad guys. But I need you to think about all those people you saved. They think you deserve that medal because you gave them a second chance and closure." You take another breath because you can feel her tremble. "So don't shut yourself out, Jane. Don't run away from your actions. You can't keep running from yourself or from the decisions you've made. You made them for a reason. You made them for all the right reasons."

She looks up at you, gazing into your soul when the next three words leave her lips, "I love you." She says it likes it's something she has kept hidden for so long and she finally found the courage to say it.

And you know that you'll put this behind you, both of you will. After a while it won't hurt as much as it does right now. After a while, you'll accept it and let it go. You'll let it go because there's so much more ahead of you that you won't be able to think about this anymore.

You brush your lips against hers and you feel so much lighter. She feels so much lighter because this conversation had to happen. You can finally let it rest. You can finally let go.

And you know. With her, you feel like you're someone else. She's happier. You're less lonely.

And together, you'll face whatever comes at you next. If this didn't kill you, you're sure that you'll survive anything else.

**End.**

* * *

This wasn't beta'd so every mistake is mine. Just point them out, if you want, and I'll fix them asap!

All of you wanted to know what happened in the one shot and this is what came out. It comes close to what's in my head, but there's something missing. I don't know what, and I've been working on this for way too long. It's not perfect but it'll have to do. If you still have questions, I'll try answering them. I cherish every single one of your comments, favorites and follows.

**Thank you for reading!**


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